


Tied by the Sun

by mizael



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: F/M, KNB Secret Santa 2014
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-27
Updated: 2014-12-27
Packaged: 2018-03-03 20:00:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2885714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mizael/pseuds/mizael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She never knew what she had until she lost it, and now she mourns for what could have been.</p><p>(written for the tumblr KNB Secret Santa)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tied by the Sun

**Author's Note:**

> HAHA i'm not late with this secret santa at all what are you talking about
> 
> fic for [theasianmuggle](http://theasianmuggle.tumblr.com/) who was my giftee for the [knbss2014](http://knbss2014.tumblr.com/)  
> she wanted aomomo but god i'm horrible at this i'm so sorry in advance

 

She remembers a long forgotten time of citrus skies and strawberry clouds, framed together like some child’s pastel paradise: the orange sun rising on a blue river, the brown birds chirping among green leaves, and the smile of a sun-kissed boy in the midst of it all, hands dipped in the water, a trail of crayfish clinging to his arms. He had laughed at the feeling of their pincers on his skin like a giant stung by ants, and gently dropped each of them back into the river. She doesn’t remember how long she had watched him catch and release, catch and release, catch and release until a woman who must have been the sun that kissed him came over to scold him.

He had laughed then, too, and told her that he did not feel their pincers, and that he was fine, and strong, and built like a hero. She had smiled at his antics behind lush leaves, candy red eyes observing from far away how he worked, laughing with his bright smile and sun-like aura, blue hair and brown skin, until the boy noticed the time in the sky and ran off.

And then she had stepped out, little feet carefully walking down the slanted hill, until her mother’s favorite shoes were soaked in water, and her mother’s favorite dress spread among the ripples. She leaned over to mimic his stance, hands crammed into the water, until she felt the smooth shell of a crustacean, and yanked it out.

The crayfish wrapped its pincers around her fingers and squeezed so hard that she cried and flung it away. Just like that, the crayfish landed back in the water with a loud sploosh, and she sat in defeat on the edge of the bank.

“Hey,” she heard behind her, and when she looked, it was the same sun-kissed boy from earlier, beaming at her from a heartbeat away. “Did you need help with catching crayfish?”

“O-Of course not,” she said, embarrassed by her lack of skill compared to his, and wrung her dirty hands in front of her, soaking her white dress in brown mud. “I just… wanted to see what it was like.”

And instead of laughing, he had smiled, and waded into the water with practiced ease. She watched him lean over again, small shoulders hunched over the wide river, hands curled to strike, feet spread behind him. He looked the very picture of a predator ready to strike.

In the moment, all was the still, and the next, all she could see was the blue blur of his hair, the flying water, and his triumphant smile as he presented the wriggling crustacean to her like an offering to a shrine.

“For you!” he had said with the brightest smile on his face, completely devoid of shadow. “I’m Aomine Daiki, how about you?”

“M-Momoi Satsuki,”

“Great!” he placed the crayfish upside down beside her, where it wriggled uselessly on its back on the hems of her dress. “Do you want to learn how to catch crayfish?”

And that was how they met.

She thinks back on that time when the only thing she sees is the ceiling of her bedroom, the back of his head, the lonely, hunched shoulders of a boy that grew up too fast. Sometimes she compares the smiling sun from before and the searing sun of now and weeps for the years between.

Could she have expected anything to outshine a sun? Did she know that someday he would realize he was the sun, and then found no hope in ever being matched?

Perhaps she did, and she kept it to herself in some far, dark corner of her mind, because there was no way she would ever see anything match his brilliance or his smile or his warm aura. And when she thinks about that, she weeps even more, because then it has become her fault that he turned out that way.

(Some part of her brain, the rational, logical side of her, tells her that despite her knowledge she could have never predicted this path or her regrets, and that she isn’t at fault at all, but Momoi blocks out all rationale from her muddled mind and continues wallowing.)

“Daiki… Daiki…” she whispers to the ceiling, holding her hand out to the citrus skies and strawberry clouds of before, when he looked at her like a friend and a companion, instead of indifference and annoyance.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she continues when he skips practice, and she has to climb the three flights of stairs to the roof, and all she wants to do is cry and bawl like the child she was before. But she can’t, because she has to be strong, for if she breaks, there would never be hope of saving him again.

(“Dai-chan! Are you skipping practice again?”

“Go away, Satsuki. It doesn’t matter if I go anyway.”

“Yes it does! Your team is counting on you to work with them--you can’t just brush them off like that.”

“As long as I keep winning, I don’t have to go to practice. Now go away.”

“Dai-chan, why can’t you just…”

“Satsuki?”)

She cries in her heart for the days long past, of the years gone by when he hasn’t smiled since the day he turned his back on the world, because he thought the world turned its back on him. She cries for him, for her, for the world to throw change into their life, and bring back the kind boy she once knew.

The boy who taught her how to catch crayfish, and became her first friend. The boy who saw only the brightest side of things, and smiled even when others wept. The boy who would lend a helping hand to those in need, and never teased them for it. The boy who rose to a challenge, and fell, but got back up.

_The only one who can beat me..._

“I’m here, I’m here,” she says when he can’t hear and shouts when he’s not there. “I haven’t turned my back on you.”

 


End file.
